|
Are the cranes made by the Chinese?
I mean, first they poisoned our pet's food...then they poisoned our children's toys. I keep wondering what's next.
Jus' sayin
Nope.
One of the little talked about legacies of the Guiliani Administration was the decimation of the inspections office of the Department of Buildings. Throughout the 1990's, between investigations into fraud (a good thing) and retirements, the number of active inspectors declined from 800 to 277. For the most part, contractors were allowed to operate on the "honor system". When Mike Bloomberg became mayor, he declared the department to be demoralized and overworked. He hired a new chief, Patricia Lancaster, who is well regarded and has slowly built back the department to over 400 inspectors, which is still half of what is needed.
In addition to the shortfall in the number of inspectors, we are in the throes of a construction boom in the city. The WTC is being rebuilt, over the next decade the city with grow by 1m people and we have an aging infrastructure. Also, many of these new projects are not union contracts and don't have the level of safety typically mandated in such contracts. The contractors hire illegals who either don't speak enough English to understand safety instructions or have foremen who will run the risk of worker injury in order to shave costs. Each one of these issues is a cause for concern, together it spells disaster.
|